He says he does understand Chesterfield’s frustration with a sales tax structure that takes away much of the mall-rich city’s sales tax revenue, but sees a bit of irony in Chesterfield wanting to pull back how much it sends to the county pool.

“The city of Chesterfield is able to go ahead and capture half of the St. Louis County sales tax to pay the developers to build the levee, and I don’t remember them having second thoughts about that,” he says. “Now, the new revenue has to go back to the county and all of the sudden they think it’s unfair.”

But Ehlmann says there’s no way both County Councils and both populations would vote for Chesterfield to move, which leaves one solution.

“Chesterfield just needs to go ahead and work with St. Louis County,” he says.